


I walk the line

by Eicinic



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: (Home: safety, /Lance/), M/M, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Vulnerability, familiarity
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-28
Updated: 2016-09-28
Packaged: 2018-08-18 06:43:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,476
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8152678
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Eicinic/pseuds/Eicinic
Summary: “what’s wrong, Lance?”It’s simple and straightforward, this is his partner, the person he fights with but also the person he fights for and the difference is not so subtle for Keith anymore. He takes one anxious step forward, and waits, because he wants to be here. Wants to be here for him. They are something together. Rivalry, camaraderie, Voltron. Keith’s life was always filled with silence until Lance arrived.“I have a crush on you”.





	

Growing up holds multiple different meanings to it, but for him it’s only translated as a _Big Fuck Up,_ coming with the realization he _likes_ his partner. It hits him like a bad punch to the pit of his stomach, party poppers and balloons and all that shit because _jokes on him,_ he’s gay as fuck. It’s easy to blame it on Keith, on how he’s always just _so superior,_ rivalry embittering an admiration turning into _something else._ The truth? He should have seen it coming. His body vibrates when it’s next to Keith’s and it’s not due to the adrenalin of their fights, but something entirely else taking place in his brain. Or that’s what Pidge had said, at least, _it’s just a chemical reaction, Lance._ But it’s not just a _chemical reaction_ because it’s _Keith,_ and Lance _hates it._ Except, he doesn’t.

 

He really, really wants to. Wants to take it out on his partner, to tell him to fuck off, to break his straight nose, his shaped mouth, rip off that stupid mullet and all the consequences of what this is taking on him, perpetual heartburn heading the list. Instead, he munches on it alone, locks himself up in his room under the pretext of getting bored of everyone’s shit and counts the days passing, hoping for the odd weight in his chest to loosen up, even though it only gets worse when Hunk tries to talk him out on it, when Shiro bangs on the door loudly and insistently, when Allura asks him if he’s doing okay, when Pidge decides they’ll talk about scientific matters until Lance opens out of annoyance, when Keith arrives, quietly, and waits not knowing what to do. He only says, _we’re missing you,_ and leaves.

 

Lance shows up nearly three hours later, hair disheveled and tired apologetic smile, like it’s nothing, like he’s not avoiding Keith’s eyes on purpose, like he’s not physically aching for not being closer. Anyway, he throws in a peace sign, because _this is Lance,_ and playing immature is his favorite card to keep hiding in the hole he’s dug for his insecurities. Like a curtain of smoke, he laughs everything off, still tantalizing Keith, promising he’s going to be the first, and the best, but he’s not as fast as he was, not as energetic, not as competitive, and even Keith notices one day, snapping a bitter _are you letting me win?;_ the way Lance knits his eyebrows together being enough answer.

 

They used to be on each other’s neck most of the time, now _most of the time_ involves a heavy silence he can’t explain, an unspoken tension and a weight on Lance’s shoulders _he doesn’t like._ He wants to win their stupid bickering because he’s better, but this only feels like a pointless, awkward exercise. Just,

 

“what’s wrong, Lance?”

 

It’s simple and straightforward, this is his partner, the person he fights with but also the person he fights _for_ and the difference is not so subtle for Keith anymore. He takes one anxious step forward, and waits, because he wants to be here. Wants to be here _for him._ They are _something together._ Rivalry, camaraderie, Voltron. Keith’s life was always filled with silence until Lance arrived.

 

“I have a crush on you”.

 

 _I have a crush on you._ **I have a crush on you** . Keith doesn’t find his own voice. He studies Lance, cautiously, but there isn’t mockery in his tone, nor his eyes, his shoulders are dropped, he’s resting his weight more on his left leg, just the way he always does when he feels like he’s overstepped his boundaries with Allura, when _he’s feeling guilty,_ and Keith doesn’t understand _why, if this is nothing to blame on oneself,_ but when he manages to open his mouth he only says:

 

“I’m sorry, I can’t return your feelings”,

 

and bows. Digs his nails in the palms of his hands and hides his expression behind his bangs so Lance won’t see how much it’s hurting him right now. _He’s so sorry._

 

There is a pause, and then laughter.

Lance is laughing it off, finger guns pointing at him and impertinent wink in his right eye:

 

“No prob, pretty boy, I’ll just have one more reason to beat you up now”.

 

Turns on his heels and pads out of the training room. Keith’s still bent over his stomach, knuckles white, jaws tense and eyes _burning._

 

He’s _hurt him._

 

Later, under the steaming shower, Keith hates himself with such ferocity he’s forced onto his knees to empty his insides in the toilette. Even long after being done retching, his gut is still twisting with the nausea. He _can’t._ They have to defeat the Galra, they have to form Voltron, to protect the universe, he has to _look after Shiro._ Shiro is what he knows, the first thing that comes to his mind when he wakes up and also the last one before falling asleep. He would give up his life for Shiro and that’s _so unfair to Lance._  

  


When morning arrives his eyes are talking of a sleepless night. He knows he has to pretend normalcy even if it only works to keep the insubstantial illusion that everything is _like it used to be,_ though he doesn’t think he can look at Lance at all. So he skips breakfast. Hunk shows up later with a trail of some porridge that doesn’t smell as bad as it used to. His stomach churns and he swallows down bilis, turning his face to look away in what he hopes is indifference.

 

Hunk doesn’t leave.

 

“You know, today’s breakfast was nice. Pidge created this small robot they hoped could properly cook, but it became berserk and ripped out part of Coran’s moustache. He went crazy. Shiro had to tackle him down before he destroyed the whole castle. Allura was still laughing when I came to bring you breakfast”.

 

A pause.

 

Keith hates he’s forced to ask, yet pulls out his best facade and comments:

 

“What a pity it didn’t rip one of Lance’s eyebrows”.

 

“Oh, don’t think _Coran_ didn’t try. He was the one laughing the most, if someone deserved crap, it was him”.  

 

Far from being relieving, the unsettling feeling in his stomach intensifies. Is Lance okay? Does Keith have the right to ask? _Does Lance want to be asked?_

 

He can work with this. Lance was laughing, maybe it’s okay. Maybe he can start getting dressed and follow Hunk where the rest are being as chatty as always.

 

His eyes are searching for the brunette even before he can realize. Lance’s talking with Pidge, exaggerating his gestures and putting on his best crooked smile, _it’s so Lance_ Keith breathes deeply for the first time in a whole day.

 

If his partner is doing his best, he won’t be less.

  


He really, really tries. Tries to be talkative in the mornings as to fill the heavy silence weighing on them, asks Pidge how they’re doing in the labs, asks Hunk if he’s come up with something new to increase the potency of the spaceship, doesn’t need to ask Shiro for Shiro to start spilling his last, weirdest dream in his most careful and polite smile. Keith knows this one, he’s analyzing him, silently asking if he’s okay. _Keith is._ He shouldn’t be the one being asked. However, because Lance’s in the same room, he avoids Shiro’s eyes and his familiar closeness, avoids physical contact even more than ever, acts like he’s not worrying insane, like the sudden void between him and his partner isn’t driving him nuts.

 

He’s always been a lonely person, so why is _solitude_ tearing him apart now.

  
He knows.   
  


When there’s always been rivalry between Lance and him, now it’s just quietude. No more insane chit-chat, staying up until three am to see who’s the best with the lasers and waking up two hours laters to sink in caffeine and morning wrestling until they take it to the lions, and the day officially starts in the castle.

 

Keith is by himself now. Whenever he comes across with Lance, Lance throws in the flirtatious comment of the week, if those promises of a lifetime waiting for him can be called _flirting,_ and laughs it off the following second, like it’s not real if he laughs about it. Like he can mask the pain, even though Keith can tell the corners of his mouth are lying every time. He knows every single smile of Lance, Lance _isn’t this_.

 

Lance isn’t this distance, this unspoken hurt, these avoided gazes, this silence that echoes in the room when they are both training, the heavy tension during meals, Lance isn’t dropped shoulders and bloodshot eyes. Yet, every time he only smiles and tells him _it’s okay, pretty boy, you will be gay for these lanky bones too,_ and leaves.

 

Keith once thought he missed the family he didn’t have, the friends he didn’t have, the place he didn’t belong to, but the only thing he misses raw is the connection with his partner. The lions bring them together,  he’s been able to peer inside Lance’s thoughts, to experience his feelings as their own when they link their minds in the training room, when they’re Voltron; when they have a fight, when they throw punches at the other but also when they end up cracking laughter the following seconds, bloody mouths and noses and knuckles,

 

Lance makes him feel like they _own the universe_.

 

Nothing talks about freedom more than the races in their lions to the furthest part of the world they’re currently in, until it’s empty of any civilization, just them, resting over the heads of their machines, close enough to feel the temperature of the other’s body, contemplating the immensity of the sky.

 

In those moments, Lance’s face lights up by dreams of a life without this war, by nostalgia, because these aren’t the stars you can see from Earth, but they’re stars, and this is Keith, Keith means _safe,_ he’s saying, Keith means walking forward, the possibilities of an endless future. Yet, precisely because _this is Keith,_ he ends with his best playful smile and _but I bet these stars are jelly of you,_ adding a wink with a _because you’re next /to me/_ just when the raven’s showing his twisted expression in a pain that is saying _please don’t, it hurts me to hurt you._ A face Lance is already familiar with.

 

 _Everything’s okay_ , he hears him one afternoon by mistake. Keith deduces he’s talking with Hunk judging by the earnest in his voice, _I figured long ago I’d also be the worst at loving, like I am in everything else._ Keith has to support his weight on the wall before his knees grow weak on him. No, he wants to yell, no, this is not how you are.

 

Lance is their diamond paladin. The bravest, and noblest; the one with the heart of gold, sacrificing himself for others before sparring a single thought for himself; the one that sticks them together, that initiates the food wars, but also the kicks under the table and cracks the most horrible jokes in the universe. He infuriates Shiro and Allura, but has saved their asses more times than what they can actually count, Lance’s the one who, even while he’s the most homesick, makes them feel like they’re at home.  

 

This is the faith Keith’s started to wake up to every morning. He _needs_ to make Lance _understand_ he’s the heart of Voltron, but Lance won’t hold a proper conversation with him and that’s another of the endless things of the list of what it used to be but it’s not anymore.

 

Keith doesn’t understand. Doesn’t know what’s really going on between them but he hurts everyday, hurts when goes to sleep, when opens his eyes, _physically hurts_ over the meter of distance between them when they used to sit knee to knee.

 

He tried to say sorry, one time, written in a post-it on Lance’s door. Three times, through words.

 

Endless times, with his eyes.

 

Lance only smiles and tells him _it’s okay._

  


_It’s okay_ still rings in his ears when Keith slams shut the door of his bedroom and cries for the first time in years. His chest is heaving painfully cracking every sob, his eyes are burning, this is not as relieving as it used to be. He doesn’t fully realize how much Lance means to him until he bangs his head against the headboard of the bed and pleads

 

once and again

 

once and again

 

once and again

 

_please let me love Lance how he needs me to_

 

(he tells himself maybe it can’t be so bad to try)

 

Keith wipes his face, slides out of his bedroom and pads to Lance’s, punching the door rather insistently, not giving him any chance of running away. The brunette opens one minute later, still in the sweats of that afternoon, disheveled hair and bloodshot eyes to match with Keith’s.

 

Keith wants to say _I’m sorry_ , but his body is definitely not when he trips over the doorframe trying to reach out to Lance and ends up colliding with him, **_him_ ** _,_ unbelievably solid and warm; Lance smells just like the afternoons under the sun in the desert of Arizona, those two weeks they spent back home but away from the world, chasing each other with their lions, yelling insults and, eventually, sparring until they could feel the burn of their worn out bodies down to the very cells of their organisms. He can’t avoid the exhalation of air and the consequent intake of oxygen, like this is the first time he’s breathing; and he’s breathing _Lance,_ whose hands are embers resting on Keith’s waist, to hold him. He never thought he would need Lance as much as he’s doing now: melting against his partner.

 

He can listen to his heartbeat: erratic, out of control, about to burst.

It mirrors his.

 

“Keith”, Lance croaks five seconds later and suddenly pushes him away. Keith got here, but he doesn’t know what to do, what to say.

 

“Please stop avoiding me”.

 

Lance’s expression switches from disbelief, to culpability. The last one weighs more, because he says, quietly:

 

“I’m sorry… i didn’t… want to hurt you”.

 

Which is _Keith’s line,_ this is _Keith’s apology,_ is Lance going to take this away from him too? He shoves him, one, two, three times, eyes burning and jaws clenched,

 

“ _why_ ”

 

why are you so far away, why things weren’t enough for you, why did you have to crush _on me_ of all people, **me** , Keith, unbelonging, unfamiliar, unworthy of _you,_ Lance, _who are the world, who has everything,_ and he’s pushing Lance against the wall, they can’t move further. Lance is letting him, expression pitched in pain, he’s heartbroken. Those are eyes that shouldn’t cry, Keith wants to yell, but he only struggles with breathing until he feels a pang in his chest and his shoulders shudder.

 

“We got this far, _I_ got this far… because of you. You make me a better person, Keith”.

 _He_ makes _him_ a better person? He wants to tell him he’s wrong, that this is not love, but it is, because Lance also makes Keith a better person. Gives him the will to look _forward_ to their future even though he knows it will be filled only with war. But war is something he can face if _Lance is by his side._

So he tells him.

  
“I love you”.

 

He doesn’t add _not in the way you want,_ but his face gives it away. There is a heavy pause between them. Keith is crying quietly, head down and eyes hidden from his partner. He can’t hear anything but his own pulse banging in his ears, until Lance speaks:

 

“When I said I have a crush on you, what did you think I was expecting from you?”

 

What did he _what._ Keith lifts his face, nose still running and eyes still swollen and _there it is,_ Lance’s _crooked smile_. It’s a genuine, albeit small one, accompanied by the rough brush of his sleeve, wiping the raven’s face.

  
“God, you’re such an ugly crier”.

 

“Everything?” He murmurs, swallowing his pride in favor of Lance’s bony fingers fluttering over his cheeks. Who is pretty while crying, anyway.

 

“Isn’t everything what I already have from you? So the right question is, what are you afraid of?”

 

_What are you afraid of._

  
_Everything._

 

He’s afraid he will let Lance down. He will hurt him _further._ Keith’s sacrificed his life to the Garrison and the indifference of an existence filled with loneliness, he’s never thought he would be willing to give up _this life,_ this: _everything he knows,_ for someone. He doesn’t understand the consequences of this faith in his partner, of the certainty that he can jump into the void because Lance’s going _to follow him,_ and even if they’re down to hell, they go _together._

 

 _Together_ is a word with meaning because it implies Lance.

 

Then, suddenly, it enlightens him.

 

“You knew?”

 

Lance’s smirk is not so confident this time, but it’s there, reassuring, _familiar,_

 

“Knew that you were a blind dumbass? Kinda. Wasn’t hard to understand those empty brains of yours. But it was hard to make you realize it. Honestly? I shat myself when you turned me down even though _I was expecting it._ Of course you would be the best out of us, _again_ ; it’d be crazy to be so selfish for the other when we’re shouldering the universe, and all. But you were also the dumbest. You are not going to ruin us, Keith”.

 

“But… what about… the distance… and…”

 

Lance grimaces and looks down.

 

“I’m sorry. I was scared, too. I was sure you reciprocated my feelings, in the same intensity at least, but I was walking on a tightrope. I was leaving you space”.

 

Keith clenches his teeth and hisses _you goddamn coward,_ and Lance _widens_ his smirk, _fair enough. You won this over, you came._

 

 

> You came.

 

He loves him. This is a statement with whom Keith can live. Nothing has to be different, they still can beat each other up, bleed out through broken noses, push the other to be best, to do better. Keith can still come back after a mission and find Lance outside, in his favorite spot under the north wall, stargazing. The raven will quietly sit by his side and share his unspoken dreams of coming back _home,_ being home something he doesn’t know. But, doesn't he?

  
Lance’s eyes are saying otherwise.

“You still… meant crush as in… romantically…?”

His partner remains quiet for longs seconds, either battling with himself or considering Keith’s input. Keith can firmly pretend his own heart isn’t agonizing inside his ribcage, and his palms aren’t twitching to shape Lance’s solid chest again.

 

“It means I can’t _stop thinking of you_ all the goddamn time, and it’s _annoying_ ”. He’s raising his brows, half mocking, half playful, but this is another facade. Keith might’ve got to the conclusion he loves Lance, but there still can be a difference in what Lance wants from him and what Keith just _can’t give._ How is he supposed to do this, if he’s never known who to look up to learn.

 

But Lance’s already there before he can even finish his inner monologue, _as he’s always been,_ slightly bending down to breathe against Keith’s face, he can hear their suicidal hearts in the silence, colliding with their bones in their need to claw their way out of their chests, _it hurts,_ Keith thinks, _loving you hurts,_ and Lance agrees when their lips meet and their lungs burn as they stop breathing.

 

It’s rather a lot of bravado and little of technique, just how his partner is, but the way his tongue sways over his for a second sends electricity down his abdomen and Keith finds himself shuffling closer, Lance’s large hands nestling in the warmth of his skin under the black t-shirt, an exhalation of air, an urgency tingling in the tip of his fingers, _this is nice. This is Lance._ It smells like him, like him: _familiar,_ and here in his room deep in his mouth Keith can be a barricade for him. Can make him feel safe when he pushes Lance against the bed, he falls with a whimper stuck in his throat, eyes wide in awe and face slightly darker than usual as the raven climbs on top of him and secures firmly his arms on both sides of Lance’s head, staring at him because _look at me,_ there isn’t anything else.

 

The war, their duty, their insecurities, their fears, are out of this room. There is only Lance’s heavy breathing and occasional squirming, because _guess_ ,

  
_Keith also plans on beating you up in this._

**Author's Note:**

> i watched a few episodes of voltron and liked lance


End file.
